Little heartbreak

Two players I wanted to support in this first round of Wimbledon.

Bellucci is in great form. People often say that when he’s on fire, you have to be on his side and push with him. And that’s been confirmed recently. We’ve seen the Italian start very strong on grass and keep going in that vein. I even loved his loss against Ugo Humbert in a very high-level match, especially when you see what the Frenchman did afterwards. We’ve got an excellent version of Bellucci right now, and he rightly reminds us that last year he already played very well at Wimbledon, notably knocking out Lehecka before putting in a decent performance against Norrie. The Italian is a major threat this week if he doesn’t slip up right from the first round.

The situation is a bit different for Svajda, who’s been disappointing at the start of this grass-court season. The American actually has a pretty impressive record on this surface in previous years, but only at Challenger level. I told myself he might be a player who took advantage of weak Challenger fields to rack up wins, but he still has some solid matches to his name. I don’t really understand why he didn’t build on his big Roland Garros run. The beginning of an answer is that he was sick in Mallorca and didn’t make it through qualifying. As a result, we’re kind of forced to be wary of him, because if he shows the same level as at Roland Garros, then he’s capable of anything. It’s a surface that could really suit his game, since he’s fairly small and mobile while keeping his tennis super relaxed. He’s interesting in an underdog role.

We’ve got two players who are quite similar in the way you have to approach their matches: two players who, when in form, can do wonders and, on the other hand, when out of form, can completely miss the mark and have a bad attitude on court. Right now, it’s Bellucci who offers the most guarantees in terms of level of play and motivation. I’d instinctively lean towards him.